http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1042425/Why-ignore-bad-spelling-Lecturer-calls-amnesty-students-20-errors.html?ITO=1490 Why are British students so bad at spelling their own language? (And other native English speakers too, especially Americans.) Here are some comments from non-native English speakers, and I agree with them: Paula, Italy: I am a foreigner, I studied your beautiful, elegant, expressive language as a foreign language, and I don't make spelling mistakes. Most of my friends and colleagues who also studied it as a foreign language don't make any spelling mistakes either. We're not an educated elite, we studied English in very average, ordinary schools, no more than three or four hours a week. How come British "students" cannot manage? Eve, Poland: This idea is ridiculous. Besides, I don't understand how people can make such mistakes in their own language. English is my second language and I wouldn't be caught dead misspelling these words. CC7, Switzerland: I'm not a native English speaker and yet I would write all the words in this list correctly. That's called "learning", and it should also -especially- go for native speakers! Wilma, Netherlands: My Dutch students were extremely surprised when I told them that lots of English people could not distinguish between "there" and 'their" and "it's" and 'its". By the way English is my third language. Raymond, Germany: I am a language trainer in Luxembourg and to give in to the bad spellers is a capitulation which signals how little respect British people have for their own language. German, French and even Polish speakers don't suffer similar problems because they are taught to hold their language in high regard. (...) I tell my international language training participants to ask Scandinavians or Dutch people how to write if I am not there to help. Furthermore, I know one British person at the place I work whose letters are corrected by his French boss because they are full of mistakes. Anthony, Malta: I learnt the English Language at a state school in Malta fifty years ago. Thankfully great emphasis was laid on this most important of languages then and now. Spelling mistakes were anathema. How can people, born and bred in England, be unable to spell words in their own language ? How low can standards in this once Great country get ? Hmm, after I saw your answers, I guess now I know why. You just don't care. And if you don't care, please don't answer the question. Why are you people offended? I asked a serious question here. Aren't you ashamed of the fact that you don't know your own language and that foreigners have to correct you? Most of you didn't even bothered to read this, then how could I expect you to read a book. Oops sorry, I mean "didn't even bother", not "bothered". Sorry, I was typing too fast.
Words & Wordplay - 13 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
yeah
2 :
IDK!!!! and IDC!!!!!!
3 :
question is too long, nobody cares!
4 :
I think some people worry too much about spelling, and that content is more important to me.
5 :
This is what i was thinking the whole time i read your question...Blab blahhhhh blah.
6 :
ummm yes?
7 :
That is so funny because of the missed spelled words! LOL I studied Spanish for a long time and can say that when you learn it as a second language you pay more attention to details. When you are a native speaker you tend to become lazy because you know people will understand you. Plus in today's society with all of the texting many words have been shortened. I have a professor that actually had to remind my junior college English class that your thesis papers couldn't use text talk, aka U for you, and that OMG is not a sentence.
8 :
I don't know why people insist on repeating this question over and over, but thank you for your ignorance and your two points.
9 :
too much reading.. :P
10 :
I've thought about this before too. I think it's because people who are born and raised in an English-speaking environment only learn the language from hearing it and from experience, not in a classroom. For most spelling and grammar rules only come when they begin attending formal schooling. Thus, speaking the language comes more easily than writing or spelling it. Those who learn English as a second language learn it in a formal, classroom environment, where the rules of spelling and grammar are taught to them straight away.
11 :
Apparently Paula, Eve, CC7, Wilma, Raymond and Anthony are all better then us and we suck.....whatever
12 :
Gee I don't know, maybe it's because we are busy doing other things like protecting the freedom and rights of others to write opinions like you just did. xox
13 :
I think one of the reasons may be the fact that they have a lot of exposure to casual English that interferes with the proper way of spelling and grammar. Also as all native speakers of any language, those who make spelling / grammatical errors may be using their intuitive knowledge of their language rather than rules to decide what is correct and incorrect. Nonnative speakers of English, on the other hand, encounter other types of difficulties when writing or speaking: the proper use of the prepositions, pronunciation, intonation, word stress, sentence stress, interference of the first language, the culture to mention only a few.
